Newsstand: May 1, 2013

Happy birthday, May. Another year older, but as sunshiny as you have ever been. In the news: school bus drivers not ready to strike, Ford not ready to take the casino vote to council, car insurance rates set to drop, and a public health report on getting your kids vaccinated.

Nearly 600 of the school bus drivers in the city, working for both the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board, will not be taking to the streets (well, actually they will) as a tentative deal was reached about an hour before the strike deadline of 12:01 this morning. According to the boards, a strike could have directly affected over 4,000 students, mostly from the secular board. Good news, kids.

The illustrious mayor Ford would rather not know just yet what the rest of city council thinks of a Toronto casino. Through a rarely used device in the Mayor’s municipal arsenal, Ford has removed the casino vote from next week’s meeting agenda and is instead working on planning a special meeting on the topic for sometime later in May. It seems that Ford doesn’t feel very lucky about his casino prospects.

If you own a car, then the Ontario budget being released Thursday has a definite sweet spot for you. This budget will set, as a target, a price drop of 15 per cent on car insurance. The Liberals cut car insurance rates by 10 per cent in 2004, but within 6 months the rates had snapped back to their original level, so don’t call us skeptical for not running out to buy a red sports car and hiring a 16-year-old chauffeur.

Officials from the city’s public health office are expressing concern that parents are delaying their children’s vaccinations for thing like measles or polio because of scientifically baseless fears that the injections may be linked to autism. The report follows a measles outbreak that happened at a city daycare back in February in which public health officials say that some parents were hesitant to get their children vaccinated for the virus because of the supposed links to autism.